Hitcho defense cost more than $116,000

An artist rendering of the George Hitcho Jr. death penalty hearing in the… (BILL TERNAY, The Morning…)

June 13, 2012|By Riley Yates, Of The Morning Call

Northampton County taxpayers spent more than $116,000 to defend Freemansburg cop killer George Hitcho Jr., a hefty — if typical — bill in the courthouse for death-penalty cases.

The money got Hitcho two doctors, three investigators and one professor, but it didn't get him off death row for shooting officer Robert A. Lasso in the back of the head last summer.

Last month, a jury convicted Hitcho, 46, of first-degree murder, then a week later sentenced him to die for it. Because Hitcho was indigent, he was represented by the county public defender's office.

The $116,777 bill for his defense covered the services of six experts who examined everything from his brain to his background.

Some were called by the defense during the trial, when Chief Public Defender Michael Corriere argued Hitcho was guilty of a lesser degree of murder. Others were called at sentencing, when Corriere unsuccessfully sought life in prison rather than death. At least one — Dr. Susan Rushing, a University of Pennsylvania psychiatrist — took the stand at both stages.

The cost was denounced as "exorbitant" by District Attorney John Morganelli, but defended as necessary and unsurprising by Corriere.

Defense attorneys in capital cases must research their clients' pasts and their mental health, or risk being deemed ineffective at appeal, said Corriere, who cited case law and American Bar Association guidelines.

As a result, expenses for psychologists and defense investigators are "automatically triggered," when prosecutors seek the death penalty, Corriere said.

The highest paid expert for Hitcho was Louise Luck, a defense specialist who researches defendants' lives to offer their human side to a jury deciding whether to sentence them to death. She received more than $37,500.

The defense hired two private investigators, John Stahr and Rod Devine, to the tune of nearly $30,000. A prison expert from American University inWashington, D.C., Robert Johnson, was brought in to educate the jury about what a life sentence really means, at a cost of over $7,500.

Rushing, the psychiatrist, and Gerald Cooke, a Plymouth Meeting, Montgomery County, psychologist, testified that Hitcho suffered from brain damage that left him prone to anger, frustration and agitation. Combined, they received more than $42,000.

"I'm just shocked by the cost of these expert witnesses," Morganelli said. "It's just an outrageous waste of taxpayers' dollars."

"There needs to be re-evaluation of the necessity of these experts for every case that comes down the pike," Morganelli added, noting that many of those used in Hitcho's case regularly testify in capital trials.

Death penalty cases are consistently the priciest, given what is at stake. A 2010 federal study found a median cost of $101,592 when federal charges go to trial. Northampton County's routinely exceed six figures.

Hitcho's isn't even the most expensive defense the county has had to foot. Corriere spent $122,000 defending Michael Eric Ballard, who was sentenced to death last year for murdering four people in Northampton while on parole for a prior killing.

Morganelli said that while the decision to seek the death penalty is one his office makes, the decision to go to trial is one that is in the hands of defendants. With Ballard the exception, Morganelli said he is always willing to bargain away the death penalty in exchange for life in prison without parole and a waiver of any appeals.

"They opted otherwise [by going to trial] and there has to be a risk to them," Morganelli said. A death sentence is that risk, he said. "They want to roll the dice. They want the best of both worlds."

The public defender's office has a $1.53 million budget this year, with $400,000 socked away for expert witnesses. There is one capital case pending: Elizabeth A. Collazo was charged in March with shooting the father of her four children in Williams Township hours before a custody hearing.